


the stars can hear us praying

by neonthrones



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Childhood Friends, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Galaxy Garrison, M/M, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Rating May Change, Stargazing, Street Racing, They're neighbors and it's cute and then it's suddenly sad, Young Shiro, keith is a disaster boy, young keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-03-21 12:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonthrones/pseuds/neonthrones
Summary: Keith’s life is thrown into chaos when his father disappears.He’s going to have to go to a foster family - on the other side of the continent. After losing his dad, the idea of losing anything more leaves the young boy even more distraught; His home, his school, and most of all, his best friend Shiro. When Keith is packed up and shipped off to his new home, they promise they’ll see each other again.It’s over a decade later when Shiro breaks up two first years caught in a fistfight, only to see the older but unmistakable features of Keith Kogane staring back at him furiously.





	1. Pinky Swear

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Teen and Up for now, but it may drop or go up depending on some specific decisions I'll make. Enjoy!

“Come on!”

 

“Are you allowed up here?” Keith asks breathlessly as he follows Shiro up the rickety ladder resting against his house. The older boy looks down over his shoulder as he reaches the top, his eyes sparkling.

 

“Nope! That’s the fun part,” he grins, his white teeth flashing in the moonlight. It highlights the dark gaps between the crooked teeth protruding at different lengths from his gums. He jumps from the top step to grab onto the guttering and hoist himself up to the tiled roof, then shuffles around to peer over the edge at Keith. Keith grins back at him, determination flaring in his chest. Heck _yeah_ it was the fun part. He climbs the ladder with renewed vigor, but the wind is knocked from his sails when he reaches the top. The ladder doesn’t quite reach the edge of the roof, and the gap is too big for him to comfortably reach.

 

“Shiro, I can’t reach up there,” Keith says, pushing his whisper to its maximum volume. Shiro looks around himself for a solution to their problem, but there’s no bigger ladder in sight. This gap is nothing for the grown-ups, so why would they need one? Keith pouts irritably. Grown-ups never think about making things easier for kids, like how they always have the cookies and sweets on the top shelf, or passwords for things on the TV. A grubby hand reaches down towards him.

 

“I’ll pull you up, like they do in movies,” Shiro says confidently, wiggling his fingers. “I won’t drop you!”

 

“Promise you won't let go?”

 

“I won’t let go, I promise,” he nods once, and that’s all Keith needs. He reaches up and takes Shiro’s hand and the older boy pulls with all his might. Keith’s scuffed sneakers scrabble against the wall for grip, pushing himself up until he can reach the gutter. He grabs onto the edge with his free hand, his fingers dipping into some slimy stuff that makes him shudder as he hefts himself up and over. Shiro lets go of him and falls back against the flat roof, gasping for breath while Keith looks over the edge. _Yikes_ , that was high. He giggles for some reason that he can’t quite figure out and flops down beside Shiro.

 

“That was _cool_ ,” he grins. Shiro nods in agreement as he sits up.

 

“ _So cool._ Not as cool as what I’m gonna show you though!”

 

Without another word he hops to his feet and crosses to the other side of the roof. Keith frowns quizzically and rolls over onto his front to see what mysterious thing Shiro wants to show him. He gapes at the shining piece of equipment that Shiro has crouched next to, twisting knobs on the side.

 

“Is that your dad’s telescope?” Keith gasps.

 

“Yeah, I heard him tell mom earlier that he was leaving it up here tonight so he could use it tomorrow,” Shiro explains, screwing one eye closed and peering into the eyepiece. “He showed me how to use it ages ago, but I’m not supposed to play with it.”

 

“You’re playing with it now,” Keith says, wiping the dust from his jeans as he got to his feet. He’s never been up on a roof before; he can see the whole neighborhood from up here, the floodlights of the parking lot outside the local supermarket in the distance. The full moon illuminates the sky enough that the mountains in the distance are silhouetted against it, and a lone red light blinks slowly on top of one of the peaks. Keith used to think that it must be an alien ship, until Shiro had authoritatively told him that it was a light on top of a radio tower.

 

 _“My mom told me it’s so planes and stuff don’t bump into it in the dark,”_ he had said, then paused. _“And just in case aliens crash into it too, I guess, when they come to visit some day.”_

 

They had both agreed that it would suck if aliens decided to come say hi to Earth, only to crash into a silly tower.

 

“I’m not _playing_ with it, I’m _using_ it. There’s a difference! I’m _learning,_ ” Shiro informs him, seating himself on the makeshift bench made of crates and old pillows that his dad leaves out for his stargazing. Keith nods. That makes sense. A cold midnight breeze cuts through the air, and Keith has to hug his arms to his chest. It’s colder up here when there are no houses to block the wind. Shiro sees his movement and points to a plastic box nearby.

 

“Dad keeps blankets in there.”

 

Keith moves to the box and lifts the lid. Beneath a few tattered ast… astr… space magazines, there’s a heavy blanket. It’s a weird pattern made of dark red and green, and it’s kind of scratchy, but it’ll do. He drags it out of the box and wraps it around his shoulders, the tails of the blanket dragging along the concrete roof as he returns to Shiro and the telescope.

 

“I nearly got it, hold on…” Shiro mutters, sticking his tongue out in concentration as Keith seats himself beside him. He shivers slightly, so Keith takes one side of the blanket and puts his arm over Shiro’s shoulders, dropping the fabric over the other side and pulling it around Shiro’s front.

 

“Better?” he asks. Shiro smiles at him.

 

“Yeah, thanks. Look,” he gestures to the eyepiece of the telescope and shuffles to the side to give Keith room. Keith shuffles alongside him so that neither of them lose the warmth of the blanket, then leans forward to look into the eyepiece.

 

“I can’t see anything,” he complains.

 

“Take your time, it’s kinda hard to find the right spot,” Shiro says. Keith frowns and takes a steadying breath, then starts adjusting his position. Eventually an image comes into focus: A magnified, perfectly crisp close-up of the surface of the moon.

 

“Woah…” he breathes, sitting back and looking up at the white disc in the sky above. Its surface was speckled with darker grey spots, but through the telescope he could see the craters in detail, the shadows cast by their edges. And there, within one of the larger ones… “What’s that shining in the big crater?”

 

“A moon base!” Shiro tells him excitedly, beaming from ear to ear. Keith gasps.

 

“No way! We can see it all the way from here?”

 

“It’s awesome, right!? That’s the Galaxy Garrison research base!” Shiro says, leaning across Keith to take another look himself. “That’s where they’re planning out all the farms and stuff that they’re gonna build up there!”

 

“People are gonna have farms on the _moon?_ ” Keith has a hard time believing that.

 

“My dad says they’re going to build big greenhouses and stuff, and use cargo ships to carry earth soil so people can grow plants. And they’re gonna make even more factories up there to go through all the stuff they mine from asteroids, so the smoke and dust doesn’t ruin the planet like it used to.”

 

“That’s pretty smart,” Keith hums, peering through the lens again. He imagines all of the little bodies moving back and forth inside the shimmering base, wondering if anyone is looking back at them. “Why didn’t grown ups do that ages ago when they started making the air all dirty?”

 

“I don’t think they could get to the moon back then,” Shiro says thoughtfully. “They couldn’t get to Mars, either.”

 

“Weird,” Keith mumbles.

 

“Weird,” Shiro nods in agreement. Keith watches his friend stare up at the stars, his eyes wide and full of excitement. Keith loves seeing his friend so happy. He’s always happy when they’re talking about space. “Do you wanna go up to Space, Keith?”

 

“Well duh,” Keith replies, turning his gaze to the sparkling sky. You can’t see as many stars when the moon is full, but the bright ones still shine through. “Dad says I belong up there.”

 

“What? Why?” Shiro frowns. Keith shrugs.

 

“Dunno. Cuz I love space, I guess.”

 

“I love space too, and my dad doesn’t say stuff like that.”

 

“He says you belong in a cockpit, though,” Keith points out. “He said that when he took us to the flight simulator place and you beat all the high scores.”

 

“And then you beat all of mine,” Shiro grins. Keith dips his head bashfully.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“No, it was so cool! You were dodging all those asteroids and stuff and you did that loop thing and blasted the enemy ships like something outta Star Wars! _Blam!_ ” Shiro throws his arms wide, knocking the blanket off of his shoulders and almost sending Keith flying from his upside-down crate. He yelps and Shiro grabs at him to keep him up, but they both tumble backwards and land heavily on the concrete. They stare at each other for a second before bursting into fits of giggles.

 

“Owww,” Keith groans between bouts of laughter, hitting Shiro’s arm half-heartedly. They both fall deathly silent when they hear the sound of Shiro’s back door opening. They hold their breaths as if it’s going to make a difference, exhaling in defeat when an angry voice shouts up from below.

 

“ _TAKASHI SHIROGANE, GET DOWN HERE!”_ His dad shouts.

 

“If you stay really quiet I can pretend it was just me up here,” Shiro whispers conspiratorially. “Then when dad takes me inside you can sneak down. That way you won’t get in troub-”

 

“ _AND YOU TOO, KOGANE!”_

 

Keith puffs his cheeks out and exhales heavily.

 

“Coming, Mister Shirogane,” he drones, getting to his feet. Shiro bundles up their blanket and shoves it back into the plastic box before they drag their feet back across the roof.

 

“How comes you call me Shiro but don’t call my dad Shiro?” his friend asks suddenly. Keith frowns.

 

“Dunno. Shiro doesn’t suit him.”

 

“But we have the same last name,” Shiro points out. Keith shrugs.

 

“You’re Shiro. He’s Mister Shirogane,” he explains. There’s a rattling against the wall and the stern face of Shiro’s father appears over the edge of the roof.

 

“I can’t believe you, Takashi,” he says sharply, his glare boring holes into Shiro. Shiro scuffs his toe against the roof sullenly.

 

“I just wanted to show Keith the Garrison base on the moon,” he mumbles apologetically. His dad’s expression softens slightly.

 

“You should have asked permission, it’s dangerous up here without an adult. I could have come up with you. Come on Keith, I’ll help you get down.” He helps Keith down onto the top rung of the ladder and tells Shiro to wait on the roof until he gets back, descending the ladder to allow Keith to reach the ground. “How did you even get up there?”

 

“Shiro pulled me up,” Keith explains.

 

“That was extremely dangerous,” the grown-up explains as they reached solid ground. Dewdrops slip from the grass onto Keith’s old sneakers and seep up through a hole in the heel, soaking through his sock. “Why would you do such a thing?”

 

“Because Shiro promised he wouldn’t let me go,” Keith replies simply.

 

There was nothing else to it.  

 

 

~*~

 

 

When Keith hops off the school bus on Friday and comes home to find his house empty, he assumes his dad has gotten held up at work. So he knocks on Shiro’s front door, the same way he always does when this happens. Mrs Shirogane welcomes him in.

 

“Oh, is your dad going to be late again? That’s okay. Shiro is upstairs, he’s just getting started on his homework,” she says. Keith thanks her as he slips his shoes off and runs up the stairs, his rucksack thumping against his back. Hopefully Shiro can help him with his homework; he wasn’t really listening in class today, and the older boy should know all the answers to this stuff.

 

He doesn’t give much thought to the fact that his dad usually sends him a text to let him know that he’ll be late. He’s far too interested in Shiro’s new miniature models that his Granddad sent him from Japan; a set of different space ships, from Mars freighters to fighter pilots, and a small model of a shining red hoverbike.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Keith has his dinner with the Shiroganes, and then he and Shiro go out to play. Keith doesn’t need his dad’s keys to get his bike from the garage since he started leaving it in the garden. His dad tells him off for that, but Keith just thinks it’s not worth the hassle of locking it up in the garage.

 

His dad’s car still isn’t in the driveway when they get back from the park, so he goes back into Shiro’s house.

 

 

~*~

 

 

The clock says 8pm (he learned to read clocks in class, and he’s very proud of himself for it) but his dad still isn’t back. He’s usually back before Keith gets home from school, and never later than 6pm.

 

“When did your dad say he would be back, Keith?” Mr Shirogane asks.

 

“He didn’t text me today,” Keith replies. Mr and Mrs Shirogane frown at each other, and Keith turns his attention back to the video game he’s playing with Shiro. “Shiro, that’s so not fair! You said you wouldn’t use blue shells if you got them!”

 

 

~*~

 

 

Keith peers out of the living room window, holding his hand up to get rid of the reflections and squinting into the darkness. It was 9pm. There are still no signs of life in his house.

 

A hand touches his shoulder.

 

“Keith, I think you’ll have to stay here tonight,” she says quietly. Shiro gasps.

 

“SLEEPOVER!” the older boy whoops. He takes Keith’s hand and pulls him away from the window towards the stairs. “You can borrow some of my pyjamas, Keith! Come on, I’ll let you pick!”

 

“Can I use the alien ones?” Keith asks excitedly as he chases Shiro up the stairs. The two grown-ups are talking quietly to each other behind them, talking about calling someone. Keith doesn’t pay them any mind.

 

Before he gets into bed that night, he sends his dad a text.

 

_Its ok ur still at work. C u 2morrow. Nite nite. xxxx_

 

 

~*~

 

 

The police arrive on Saturday evening.

 

His dad hadn’t shown up for work on that Friday morning, and there’s no sign of his car or a signal from his phone. The police say he hasn’t used his money cards since Thursday, when he ordered pizza and ice cream and rented a movie for them to watch together. When they ask Shiro’s parents if anything about Mr Kogane had ever suggested that he would abandon his son, he screams at them.

 

Keith doesn’t understand. His dad must be in trouble somewhere, he wouldn’t just leave him. Tears well up in his eyes and streak down his cheeks. They have to go find him!

 

Shiro is there, and he hugs him.

 

He doesn’t let go.

 

 

~*~

 

 

“Where are you gonna go?” Shiro asks worriedly as Keith stuffs some things in his bag. Shiro has given him some jeans, some t-shirts, and a NASA hoodie. There are a few pairs of socks that are too small for Shiro now, and he had offered to share his underwear, but Keith had pulled a face at that. He would be okay without Shiro’s underwear.

 

“I don’t know. Away,” he sniffs. “I don’t want to live with a stranger.”

 

It’s been two weeks, and there’s still no sign of his dad. The police won’t let him stay with the Shiroganes. He has to go to foster parents, and they live on the other side of the country. That means he’d either have to get a _plane_ to school every day, or maybe even go to an entirely new one. (The grown-ups told him that he’d definitely be going to a new one, but while getting on a plane every day would be pretty cool, he wasn’t a fan of either option).

 

“I’ll come with you,” Shiro says determinedly, grabbing his schoolbag and tipping his books out onto his bed. “So you’re not alone.”

 

Keith wipes away his tears with the back of his hand and smiles at his friend.

 

Shiro smashes open his moneybox, because they’ll need to be able to buy snacks. Maybe they can find someone to give them a job, and then they can find a house to stay in together. They can be adults. “The youngest adults ever!” Shiro proclaims.

 

They hop on their bikes when the sun starts to set and cycle towards the edge of town, stopping on the side of the road to snack on some of the chocolate that they borrowed from Shiro’s cupboards.

 

They manage to make it out to the desert when the cops track them down.

 

 

~*~

 

 

“Shiro!” Keith cries, struggling against the firm grip around his waist and reaching out to his friend. They’re taking him away, giving him to new parents in some far away town. He doesn’t _want_ new parents, he wants his dad and he wants to stay with his best friend!

 

“Keith!” Shiro’s parents are holding him back with a tight grip on his jacket, but he wriggles out of it and stumbles across his front yard, grabbing hold of Keith’s hand.

 

“Don’t let go!” Keith says to the shape of Shiro, blurred by his tears.

 

“I won’t!” he says. And then his parents are pulling him away. “No, don’t let them take Keith away! He doesn’t want to go!”

 

Keith hears Shiro’s parents talking to them both in soft tones, reassuring them both that it’s going to be okay. Why did grown-ups always _lie?_ Shiro sobs into his mother’s chest, clutching at her jumper as Keith is strapped into the car.

 

The few things Keith owns have been gathered from his dad’s house and packed into the trunk, ready to be transported far, far away. He hopes they packed the special book that his dad gave him. The one with the secret in it. He pulls a small dragon plushie from a bag on the seat beside him and hugs it to his chest, hiding his despairing, hiccuping sobs into the fuzzy creature. He doesn’t realise that someone has approached the window until there’s a soft tap on his shoulder. He looks up to see Shiro leaning through the open window, his eyes red and puffy.

 

“I tried to stop them taking you away,” he whispers.

 

“I know,” Keith replies. It’s not Shiro’s fault. But Shiro looks wracked with guilt as he sniffs and wipes his nose. Then his hand disappears behind the door as he reaches into his pocket for something, then holds his closed fist out to Keith.

 

“Open your hand,” Shiro says. Keith obliges, and Shiro drops something into his open palm. It’s one of the models that his grandfather sent him all the way from Japan. The red hoverbike.

 

“This is yours,” Keith tries to give it back to him, but Shiro shakes his head.

 

“It’s for you now. I know how much you like it,” he says. Keith looks down at the small figure. He _does_ like it - it’s his favourite, in fact. He wants one just like it some day, a real hoverbike. He smiles.

 

“Thank you,” he says, looking up at his friend again. “You’re always gonna be my best friend. I’ll make my new parents bring me back to visit you every day.”

 

“I think you’re going to be too far away,” Shiro says sadly. “But you’re always going to be my best friend too, okay? We’ll see each other again. Promise.”

 

“Pinky swear?”

 

“Pinky swear,” Shiro agrees. They hook their pinky fingers together and shake their hands once. No one ever breaks a pinky swear. Shiro breaks the morose silence between them with a sudden gasp. “I have an idea!”

 

“What?” Keith asks.

 

“If I look up at the moon at night, and _you_ look up at the moon at night, then we’re kind of looking at it together no matter where we are!” he explains. A hint of that old sparkle returns to his watery gray eyes as he looks into Keith’s hopefully. Keith allows himself to smile at that.

 

“Then… Do you wanna look up at the moon together tonight?” he says. Shiro nods enthusiastically.

 

“We can do it every night!” he says, and then his face falls as his father places a hand on his shoulder.

 

It’s time.

 

Keith swallows thickly as the social worker gets into the driver’s seat. Tears well up in his eyes as Shiro’s parents say goodbye to him and tell him to be a good boy for the people that will look after him, but he’s not really listening. He’s watching Shiro, and Shiro’s watching him, and they’re both trying not to cry again.

 

“See you,” he chokes. Shiro bites back tears of his own.

 

“Bye,” he replies with a sniff, rubbing at his eyes.

 

Keith turns in his seat as they drive away, watching the shape of Shiro grow smaller and smaller. And then they turn a corner, and Shiro is gone.

 

 

~*~

 

 

He’s on an airplane that night, travelling across the country to his new house, his new guardians, his new school. He doesn’t _want_ any of these new things, and he certainly doesn’t want any new friends. Why would he, when Shiro will always be his friend?

 

He leans his head against the cool glass of the window, staring up at the moon shining down upon the clouds.

 

He hopes Shiro is looking up at it too.


	2. Drive It Like You Stole It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been eleven years since Keith's dad disappeared, and he hasn't exactly behaved himself over that time. 
> 
> When the police turn up at an illegal street race where Keith is the main attraction it results in a hospital visit, hurt pride, and another mark on his growing criminal record. But his lap is impressive enough to go viral, and it might draw some unexpected attention.

The street lights flash by overhead so fast that they blur into continuous lines, painting streaks in Keith's peripheral vision. 

 

_ Break on. Hard left.  _

 

The blue hoverbike tilts a full ninety degrees as Keith pulls it around the sharp corner; the base of the bike is millimetres from the shutters of the newsagents when he kicks it back into life. The sound of glass shattering reaches him over the pulse of the old engines and the music from his earphones as he leans forward to mitigate the G-Force. 

 

Well, there goes  _ that _ shopfront. 

 

Parker has needed to replace that glass for years, anyway. 

 

A quick glance over his shoulder tells him the other racers are far, far behind. He grins to himself, twisting the accelerator further. You don't need a fancy hoverbike to win these things, not when the other racers can barely fly a kite, never mind a bike. 

 

‘ _ Best in the state’, my ass,  _ Keith thinks. He glances up at the drone keeping pace just ahead of him and gives the camera a casual salute. 

 

The roads are quiet at 3am, so when he hits the main thoroughfare through the town he isn't surprised to find it almost empty. He tears down the hill, swerving to avoid the few cars in his way and flipping them the bird when they blare their horns at him. Not that they can see it, being left in his dust the way they are. And then he's twisting through the suburbs, the fancy houses at the edge of town. He hopes he’s waking all the rich fuckers up.

 

The house on the corner up ahead belongs to a jerk from school that he has a particular beef with - more so than he does with everyone else, that is. Keith swerves towards it, kicks down on his upward thrusters and clears the fence. For the brief moment he spends taking a shortcut through the other boy’s garden, he revels in the knowledge that the power of the exposed thrusters keeping his bike off the ground are tearing up the fancy flower beds and shooting dust and dirt in every direction. He boosts over the fence on the other side and straightens up on the road again, satisfied with himself. 

 

The course loops back around here, taking him through the other side of the neighbourhood and back into the grey concrete walls of the town centre. Neon signs and questionable holo-advertisements race by as he weaves through the alleys and back streets, his bike kicking up newspapers and trash and pulling it along in his slipstream before it falls out to scatter across the grubby roads. At one point his route narrows so much that the tips of the wings on either side of him scrape along the walls, leaving flecks of blue paint behind. 

 

Back onto the main street, now, then out through the other side of town. The less well-off district has narrower roads and more twists and turns than the more expensive areas of town, but they’re nothing after the tight alleys that he’s just navigated. A cat runs out in front of him and freezes in his headlights; he reacts in a fraction of a second, knocking the bike back a gear and pumping some extra juice into the upward thrust. When he comes back down to hover at normal height and picks up speed again, the cat is left standing unharmed and puffy-tailed in his wake. 

 

It’s not long until he tears out into the countryside beyond, nearly at the finish line. As he hits the crest of the final hill, the road drops away while his bike leaps into the air, leaving his stomach to catch up with the rest of him. 

 

He whoops, punching the sky. The feeling of flying, of leaving the stinking earth behind him in a trail of dust - this is the closest he’s ever going to get to it, and nothing can beat it. He pushes his bike into a nosedive, levelling up so close to the ground that the front of the bike gives the asphalt a brief little kiss before he does so. 

 

He can see the two flares marking the finish, now, and gives it one more burst of speed - not necessary, of course, considering how far behind everyone else is. He skids to a halt between the hissing red flares and hops off the bike to whoops and hollers from the small gathered crowd. The moderator of the race approaches as he pulls his earphones out.

 

“Another one bites the dust, eh?” Jacob says, flashing him a winning smile. They aren't friends - Keith doesn't  _ have _ friends, and Jacob is a bit of a dick - but they’re business partners, of a sort, so things are good between them. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the music pounding from the hastily set up speakers and the flickering holo-screens showing the real-time progress of the rest of the racers. Wow _ ,  _ Keith has  _ really  _ trashed them all. 

 

“Too easy,” he replies, breathless with adrenaline as he tugs his maroon scarf away from his mouth. Jacob grabs his wrist and holds it up to the observing crowd, as though there's any question about who the victor is, and then leads him over to his raised desk. It's covered in wires and screens, keyboards, and panels of switches. Keith glances over the databases of bets and by-the-second updates from the other drones, and then there's a wad of paper shoved in his face. 

 

“It's all there,” Jacob says, leaning back against the desk and lighting the cigarette in his mouth as Keith starts to leaf through the notes. 

 

“Eight Hundred?” he asks. 

 

“Plus a little extra something, just for you. It's the least I can do when you bring me so much business,” he says to him, then holds out his cigarette. “Smoke?”

 

He pulls a face. “Gross, no.”

 

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs, then turns his attention to the small watch strapped to his wrist. He taps at it a few times, and the drone that had been following Keith during the race comes gently down towards them. Jacob plucks it from the air and pulls out the data chip in one deft movement, then hooks it up to his computer. “That was your best run by far. Nice touch cutting through Logan’s garden by the way; that’ll bump up views. Fuck capitalists in big houses, and all that. This'll be on the net within the hour.”

 

Keith nods. Races are never streamed live, lest it becomes obvious - or rather, even more obvious than it already is - to the general law-abiding public that the cops take more than their sweet and merry time to start dealing with the races. 

 

“Uncut?” he asks.

 

“You know it, baby,” Jacob winks. Keith sighs at the innuendo. “What? You didn’t have fun?”

 

“I had plenty of fun. Got eight-fifty to show for it,” Keith waves the wad of cash in his hand. He knows what the guy means; he’s just hoping he’ll get the hint and take the conversation somewhere else. Either through stupidity or obstinacy, he doesn’t. 

 

“Don’t play dumb, Kogane. You know what I’m talking about,” he says, taking hold of Keith’s wrist to get the money out of his face. He doesn’t let go, and the distance between them is getting dangerously close to piercing Keith's personal space. 

 

“Don’t tell me you wanna make a  _ thing _ out of it,” Keith says with disgust. “I don’t do-”

 

“Relationships, I know. Neither do I. But we could get a pretty good friends with benefits thing going,” he suggests. Keith scoffs.

 

“ _ Sooo _ many benefits, like doing it in the back of your dad’s shitty Toyota with condoms you stole from a clinic,” he retorts. “And we’re not friends. Now let go of me before I break your nose.”

 

“Oh come on, man!” Jacob protests, releasing his grip. “ _ I’m _ too much of a dick to have friends,  _ you’re _ too much of a dick to have friends, and no one wants to bone dicks like us either. You got anyone else lined up to get laid with?”

 

“Jesus, Jake, buy a fleshlight if you’re that desperate,” Keith rolls his eyes. Something on one of the other boy’s screens catches his attention. “Dude, you’ve only got thirty percent of ad revenue from the vids going to my account! We agreed on  _ fifty _ !” he snarls, jabbing at his chest. Jacob holds up his hands. 

 

“Hey, man, these things are getting more expensive to run, I gotta take a little extra-” He's cut short by the arrival of another racer. She leaps off her bike and stumbles slightly before running towards their position, pulling her helmet off.

 

“Cops!” She shouts. Keith and Jacob exchange a look of horror. 

 

“I thought you paid ‘em off until five?” Keith breathes.

 

“I did!  _ Bastards _ !” he hisses, scrambling to gather up his gear and shooing Keith away. “Go go go!”

 

Keith doesn't need to be told twice. He shoves his winnings into his coat pocket and races over to his bike, pulling his scarf up over his nose as he dodges between the spectators scurrying away from the scene of the crime. The cars are on him already when he leaps into the pilot's seat and kicks the bike to life, sirens blaring and red and blue lights flashing in his face as he does a 180 in place and tears off in the opposite direction. 

 

If he can just get out of range before they can fire -

 

An EMP mine hits the road behind him, and the engines of his bike cut out a second later. It drops like a stone, the metal of its wings and underbelly screeching and sparking across the road. It takes all of Keith's strength to keep his grip on the bike.

 

Until he hits a pothole.

 

He brings his arms up to protect his face as he’s thrown from the seat, twisting his body in mid-air to hit the ground shoulder first, rolling down the road and skidding to a halt. Pain blossoms across his chest, and his head throbs where it hit the road during his roll - he clutches at it with his skinned, bleeding hands while he tries desperately to pull air into his heavily winded lungs. Each shuddering gasp sends a lance of pain down his side. 

 

The ringing in his ears from the EMP muffles the sounds of car doors opening and closing a few feet away. Seconds later he's being manhandled onto his front and there's a knee pressing into the small of his spine as his arms are pulled behind his back, his face shoved into the dirt road. The sharp, familiar click and cool metal touch of cuffs follows.

 

The officer is speaking to him, but he can't quite figure out how those sounds make words. Everything around him has blurred into flashing lights and faceless figures. There are slightly more concerned voices now, someone helping him sit up, shining a light into his eyes. But at the same time darkness creeps into Keith's vision, and then it takes over. 

  
  
  


~*~

  
  


_ Shiro’s bicycle clatters to the ground closeby as he hops off and rushes to Keith’s side. _

 

_ “Are you okay!?” Shiro gasps, kneeling on the asphalt. It’s sticky and hot to the touch under the unending heat of the summer sun. Keith bites his lip and shakes his head, worried that he’ll cry if he tries to speak. He clutches at his knee tightly, willing the painful sting to go away - it’s not the only part that’s sore, but it’s definitely the worst. His elbow stings too, and the heel of his palm.  _

 

_ “Stupid bike,” he sniffs, glaring at the offending metal frame lying a few feet away, its wheels still spinning.  _

 

_ “Let me see,” Shiro says softly, placing his hands on top of Keith’s. Keith whimpers as he tries to slowly lift his hands from his skinned knee and immediately puts the pressure back onto the injury, shaking his head again. _

 

_ “I can’t, it hurts,” he whines.  _

 

_ “Sure you can, you’re super strong,” his friend tells him. Keith swallows and steels himself, then takes his hands away quickly with a yelp. There’s blood and grit on them, and even more on his knee. Shiro makes a sympathetic noise. “You should go back home and get that cleaned, it looks rough.” _

 

_ “I want my dad,” Keith says with a nod. His bottom lip is quivering as tears slide down his cheeks. They aren’t far from their houses, but they’re far enough that neither of their parents will have seen him fall.  _

 

_ “Here, I’ll help you walk,” Shiro offers, helping him to his feet. Keith’s injured knee is too sore to bend so he keeps that foot off the ground, leaning heavily on Shiro as they slowly make their way towards his house. Hopping along on one foot isn’t as hard when you have someone to lean on.  _

 

_ “I’ve got you,” Shiro says. _

  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  


“I do not be _ lieve _ you!” May snaps as she slams the car door shut. Keith grimaces at the sudden burst of volume.

 

“Concussion,” he reminds her, poking gingerly at the lump that formed on his skull during his hospital visit and - upon being reassured that he was more or less fine - his visit to the police station for questioning. The offices of the station are as familiar to him as they are dull and lifeless. The past several hours have been thoroughly unpleasant. 

 

“ _ Mild,” _ she adds, sticking her finger in his face in warning. 

 

“So much for all that worrying you were doing earlier,” Keith grumbles, folding his arms across his chest and slumping back in the seat. Upon arriving at the hospital, his guardian had caused nothing short of a scene until she was allowed to see him. She had demanded with no uncertain terms that he was to be uncuffed  _ this instant  _ before holding his cheeks and looking into his eyes as if doing so would reveal all of his injuries to her, bombarding his clouded mind with questions.

 

“Seatbelt,” May says sharply. He does what he’s told as the car pulls away from the sidewalk in front of the station. “I  _ was _ worried. I  _ am! _ The doctor said it was a goddamn miracle for you to get out of that accident the way you did.”

 

“Attempted murder,” Keith corrects her as they stop at a red light. She gives him a brief, scathing look over the top of her glasses before turning her attention back to the road.

 

“The police did not try to  _ murder _ you, Keith.”

 

“I was _ clearly _ not wearing protective gear when they shot an EMP mine at my bike. What did they  _ think  _ was going to happen?”

 

“One, it’s your own fault that you weren’t wearing protective gear,” May replies, holding up one finger. She puts up another and continues, “Two, it’s not  _ your _ bike. And when we get home, you’re going to apologise to Ryan for stealing it.  _ Again. _ ”

 

“Borrowing.”

 

_ “Keith. _ ”

 

“ _ Fine, _ ” he huffs loudly, wincing at the sharp pain the action shoots up his side. She casts him a worried glance as he shifts himself uncomfortably in the seat, trying to find the least painful position to slouch in.

 

“You doing okay, sweetie?” she says gently. 

 

“No. Half my body is bruised, I've got a cracked rib, and I lost my money.”

 

“We’ve been over this; the money is being split between Ryan for his bike repairs and Mr Parker to help replace his shop window that  _ you _ shattered,” May explains matter-of-factly, ignoring him as he grumbles under his breath about it being  _ his _ money as he drops his chin to his chest. They sit in an uncomfortable silence for a while, until May says quietly, “I can’t understand why you keep doing this.”

 

Keith looks up at her from the corner of his eye. She looks tired. He feels a sharp pang of guilt as he wonders how many of those lines on her face have been caused by him over the past eleven years, since the first day he ended up on the doorstep of her orphanage after Family One didn’t work out.

 

And Family Two.

 

And Three. 

 

Rinse and repeat. 

 

Eventually people stopped taking pity on him, stopped thinking that they would finally be the happy home he wanted, and passed him over for one of the other kids. Keith didn’t care - that was the whole point. It had been years since he’d been anywhere but the orphanage, and that was fine by him. That way he didn’t feel like he was replacing his dad, and he didn’t have to deal with the sympathy that the families had consistently tried to give him about his circumstances. He had a bed and hot meals at the orphanage, somewhere to do his homework when he actually bothered, and a door to slam shut in the face of annoying kids who tried to be his friend. May was nice, and her husband had a bike that Keith could steal - borrow - on the regular (really, if he didn’t want Keith to use it he just had to install more complicated locks on his garage door). 

 

If he wanted to, Keith could behave himself and bide his time until he‘s out of there. But he doesn’t. 

 

“Fun,” he offers up as a lame response.

 

“Repeated theft, property damage, and illegal street racing - among other things - is not  _ fun _ , Mister,” May replies. 

 

“It kinda is, though.”

 

“Is it the adrenaline? The ‘ _ rebelling against the system’? _ ” she pushes for a proper answer, making air quotes with one hand. “I just don’t get it, Keith. I give you everything I can and more. You’re warm, well fed, well  _ loved.  _ You have access to a good school, but you ditch all the time and don’t bother doing work for half the classes-”

 

“I do work for the important ones,” Keith protests. 

 

“No, you do work for the ones you  _ like. _ ”

 

“Like I said, the important ones,” he reaffirms. She sighs heavily, and Keith is surprised when she doesn’t start banging her head on the steering wheel in frustration. 

 

“You need good grades to get a job, Keith. And you need to stop… this,” she waves a hand vaguely in his general direction.

 

“You just gestured to all of me,” he mumbles. 

 

“You know what I mean. The  _ crime. _ No one is going to hire a criminal with no grades, Keith,” she says. Frustration bubbles in Keith’s chest.

 

“No one’s going to hire a deadbeat, you mean,” he grits out spitefully, fisting his hands in the sleeves of his jacket.

 

“That is  _ not _ what I said.”

 

“It’s what you thought, though.”

 

“You’re putting words in my mouth.”

 

“I’ve already got a record, May!” he snaps as they pull into the driveway of the orphanage. It’s a large old house with timber panelling and too many windows. The paint is peeling on the corners faster than Ryan can get it re-done, and the glass of the front door was broken recently by a stray tennis ball; a sheet of plastic is taped over the hole until a guy comes to repair it later in the week. The house is fine inside though, and the exterior can be considered  _ lived in  _ or  _ homely  _ if you try _.  _ Rustic, if you want to push it. It’s home, it's comfortable, and Keith hates it. “No one’s gonna hire me no matter what I do, no  _ college _ is ever gonna take me on to study after this year. The racing is good money, it’s  _ easy _ money, and no one can beat me!”

 

“It’s dangerous!” she says exasperatedly as the engine shuts off. “And  _ illegal! _ ”

 

“All I have to do is save up enough to get my own bike and then I can head to one of the big cities, to the bigger races, and finally get out of this  _ shithole!” _ Keith shouts, and immediately regrets it. He kicks open the car door and storms into the house, not sparing a second glance at the hurt expression on his guardian’s face that he’s leaving behind. With heavy feet he runs up the old wooden stairs, dark with years of reapplied varnish, snapping ‘shut it’ at Ellie as he pushes past her and she complains about it. He shoulders his way into his small bedroom and slams the door behind him before throwing himself onto the bed face-first, ignoring the protests of his bruised everything, and screams into the pillow in frustration. 

 

He wants  _ out. _

 

But out from  _ where? _

 

_ Everywhere. _

 

He turns his head and stares at the posters plastering his wall, all of them showing places beyond the atmosphere that he was currently breathing in. The moon, Mars, the mines in the asteroid belt. Close-ups of the storms raging across Jupiter, each one bigger than the Earth itself, shots from inside the icy rings of Saturn, distant sunlight glancing off the floating glaciers. There are posters of things far beyond the solar system, too: nebulae and distant galaxies captured by incredibly powerful telescopes and probes, swirling with colour and impossibly vast. 

 

Keith wants to be out there in the vacuum, seeing things that no one has seen before and experiencing what only select groups of people have experienced. But no flight school will go near him, of that he’s sure. He really shot himself in the foot, there. 

 

His gaze moves to fix upon the little toy sitting on his bedside table. It’s a small red hoverbike, sent all the way from Japan. He’s kept it in good condition, and given more than one kid a black eye for touching it when he was younger. It was a gift from Shiro, and  _ no one _ was allowed to touch it. 

 

He hasn’t seen or spoken to his childhood friend since the day they were separated; He often looks up at the moon and wonders, foolishly, if Shiro is still looking up at it too after all these years. He also finds himself wondering if Shiro ever managed to get up to that shining base hidden in the crater. 

 

When exhaustion starts to pull on Keith’s eyelids he fights against in out of spite. He doesn’t want to sleep, he wants to stew in his own misery and resentment. But eventually, his worn out mind and injured body convince him to close his eyes for five minutes. The afternoon sunlight is gone when he opens them again.

 

The house is dark and silent, and no light is filtering beneath his door from the hallway beyond. He displaces the soft fleece blanket that’s been placed over him as he pushes himself upright, rubbing at his bleary eyes, and sees a slice of homemade chocolate cake sitting on the table beside him. He doesn’t deserve it, he thinks, but he’s hardly going to let it go to waste.

  
  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
  


It’s been five days since the race, and the footage of Keith’s circuit is going viral. Apparently people do, in fact, love it when you tear up the gardens of rich people’s houses, and they really seem to love his driving, too; Every other comment is praising the maneuver he used on the turn at the newsagents, his navigation of the alleys or the nosedive on the final stretch. He’s watching the view count climb higher on his old tablet, grinning madly as it ticks over the next thousand. That’s three thousand in the past ten minutes; it’s really picking up traction. The ad revenue is going to be  _ delicious _ , now that Jacob has been thoroughly blackmailed into giving him sixty percent. 

 

“ _ KEITH! _ ” May’s voice reverberates up the stairs and through his closed bedroom door. He gathers a breath to shout back at her.

 

“ _ WHAT?”  _ he calls loudly, not taking his eyes off the counter below the vid.

 

“ _ DON’T YOU ‘WHAT’ ME, YOUNG MAN.” _

 

He hangs his head with a sigh, revising his strategy. 

 

“ _ HOW MAY I BE OF SERVICE, MA- _ aaaay, hiiiii, May,” he trails off sheepishly as she opens his bedroom door. She looks at him reprovingly over the rim of her glasses.

 

“That’s enough cheek for one day, thank you,” she says primly, but there’s a glimmer of amusement in her eyes as he squirms in embarrassment. There’s a strange look on her face, like she’s trying very hard not to be excited about something. “Come downstairs. Someone’s here to talk to you.”

 

He opens his mouth to ask who it is, but she disappears without another word and her slippered feet can be heard making their way back down to the first floor. He frowns and tosses his tablet to the side. Dread has started to settle in his stomach as his mind races through all the people it could be, and none of them are good. Police, social workers, teachers, counsellors, psychiatrists… bad news, all of them. He sits on the bannister at the top of the stairs and slides down, hopping off before he hits the chipped wooden ornamentation at the bottom and jumping over the last few steps, anchoring on the end post to swing himself in the direction of the kitchen.

 

A woman in her fifties is sitting at the table with a tablet in front of her, discussing something intently with May and Ryan. There are folders and papers splayed out on the oak surface, most of them stamped with a ‘G’ symbol in the corner. The symbol, Keith knows, is the crest of the Galaxy Garrison. 

 

The woman, whom he now realises is wearing a pilot’s uniform decorated with medals, smiles at him as he freezes in the doorway. Through the glass of her tablet, he sees the reverse side of what she’s looking at. It’s the vid of his race, looping over select portions again and again. 

 

“You’re one hell of a pilot, Mr Kogane,” the woman says. “How would you like to  _ really _ fly?”

  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  


To verify that it’s truly him in the vid, the Garrison woman - Mrs Montgomery, as she later introduces herself - has arranged for him to complete circuits that have been set up on the grassland nearby. They’ve even supplied him with a pristine Garrison-made hoverbike to do it on, and this thing is  _ fast. _ It handles incredibly, skimming over the earth without so much as a bump as it intelligently adjusts its thrust and magnetic suspension to compensate for the uneven ground beneath it. Keith’s mouth practically watered at the sight of it.

 

Supplied with such an amazing piece of technology he completes each new circuit with ease, but the Garrison employees watching him just frown. After another fast circuit and yet more frowns, he hooks his finger into his bandana and pulls it away from his face.

 

“What am I not doing well enough for you?” for demands, ignoring the frantic  _ cut it out _ motions from May in the background. They wanted to see him drive and that's what he's doing; he feels his anger is perfectly justified. Mrs Montgomery takes his irritation in her stride, however, and waves for the obstacles to be rearranged again as she approaches him. Walls, narrow passageways, and tunnels all slowly lift off the ground on their own thrusters and are carefully maneuvered into new positions by watchful techs, measuring distances between each piece and comparing it to their diagrams.

 

“Your driving is  _ fantastic _ , Keith,” she says, resting her hand on the warm metal casing of the bike. “You’re clearing everything and making good times. Your skills could transfer easily to true flight.”

 

“So what’s the issue?” he tries to snap angrily around the hair tie he’s holding between his teeth and he pulls his hair up into a messy ponytail. It doesn’t sound quite as angry as he wants it to. 

 

“You’re being too  _ careful,”  _ she explains unexpectedly. He frowns at her as he doubles the hair tie tightly. 

 

“I’m  _ trying  _ to be careful,” he says, confused. This is the opportunity of a  _ lifetime. _ He had given up on any and all notions of joining a pilot school, never mind getting a scholarship to the  _ Garrison _ . This is his chance to get out there, to do something worthwhile and get off this lump of rock stuck in orbit around the ball of gas currently bombarding them with heat on this stifling summer’s day. Of  _ course _ he’s being careful. “I want to do this right.”

 

Mrs Montgomery shakes her head, smiling, and takes her phone from her pocket. She pulls up the clips from his vid that she had been looking at in the kitchen.

 

“You weren’t being careful here. Or here. And  _ certainly _ not here,” she whistles as the vid shows him pulling up from the dive. Feeling that she’s starting to make her point, she tucks her phone away again. “We came to you because you used  _ instinct _ , Keith. You pushed yourself and your machine to the limit, made split-second decisions in the heat of the moment, knew exactly how to handle the technology beneath you to achieve what you wanted to achieve. Careful is good, yes, but being  _ too  _ careful… that hinders missions and potentially holds back opportunities of discovery. If we needed a pilot to go into an asteroid field to answer a distress call, we couldn’t send a  _ cautious _ pilot. They would take one look at it and turn tail, no matter how skilled they were.”

 

Keith listens to this small motivational speech with a growing sense of determination. If they want reckless, he can damn well give them reckless. The techs wave over to her; the course is set. She looks at Keith and he nods at her, then pauses.

 

“I don’t wanna ruin your bike,” he says shyly, pulling the bandana over his nose again. She gives him a knowing smile.

 

“Just drive it like you stole it, Kogane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from 'Drive It Like You Stole It' by The Glitch Mob. TGM is Keith's driving soundtrack sorry I don't make the rules. 
> 
> Bring back Keith's scarf, Dreamworks. I'll pay you. Please.
> 
> Also, spot the How To Train Your Dragon reference.


	3. Collision Course

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Collision Course: a course or path of a vehicle, projectile, etc., that, if unchanged, will lead to a collision with another object."
> 
> Sometimes, they can't be avoided.

“This is Captain Shirogane of the Galaxy Garrison hailing the scout vessel  _ Skimmer  _ in response to your distress call, do you read?” Shiro reaches overhead and flicks several switches to change the heads-up display on the window. The computer begins targeting individual asteroids nearby, calculating trajectories and monitoring for any disturbances in the currently steady field of deadly rocks. There’s silence from the radio. 

 

“Give me an update on those signals, Kono,” he says calmly, moving the ship to avoid a football-sized chunk of ice. Disturbing the field is inevitable, but he’d rather not set off a domino effect of shifting rocks the size of a small stadium just yet. 

 

“The metals in the asteroids are interfering, comm signals probably won’t reach until we’re much closer,” his communications officer says from somewhere over his right shoulder. 

 

“Any read on their exact location yet?”

 

“Impossible, but I can estimate a general area for you. I can get it down to…” she replies, already tapping at her display, then sighs. “Ugh, five square kilometers.”

 

“That’s good work,” Shiro reassures her. “Better than nothing. We should be able to pick up the comm channels that close anyway, right?”

 

“Oh, yeah! Sending coordinates to your heads-up,” she replies, sounding a little cheerier. Positive reinforcement has yet to fail Shiro in these situations. The coordinates slide onto the window in front of him and integrate with the existing interface while the computer starts calculating flight paths. He turns his head slightly to the left to talk over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off his surroundings. 

 

“How’s our ship doing, Matt?” he asks his other crew member. There’s some thoughtful  _ hmm _ -ing as the engineer checks and double-checks his monitors. After a long moment of silence, Shiro takes a calming breath and resists the urge to close his eyes in mild irritation. They’ve been  _ over _ this. He taps the side of his head, then sighs. “Sorry Matt, my  _ telepathy _ isn’t working today.”

 

“Oh, right, sorry. Asteroids. Eyes on the road. Thumbs up, Captain,” Matt replies sheepishly. “All systems green.”

 

“I’m seeing a blip on one of the thrusters,” Shiro frowns, pulling one of the smaller icons on his own screen into the center and expanding it. The simplified diagram of the small shuttle was displayed perfectly, apart from a slight flickering on one of the rear components. “Starboard stern, jet two.”

 

“Huh,” Matt says, and Shiro can mentally see him adjusting his glasses and leaning in to his own screens. “Must be a loose wire in the monitoring system.”

 

“Caaaan we fix it?” Shiro asks, but he thinks he knows the answer. 

 

“Negative. The problem only seems to be affecting one thruster, so it’s safe to say we’d have to go back to base and open her up from the outside.”

 

“Maybe we’d be best getting it fixed before we go in,” Kono suggests cautiously. 

 

“The  _ Skimmer _ won’t survive out here long enough for that, it’s already been three days since they were stranded,” Shiro replies. His main display flashes and he swipes the monitoring system to the side to review the paths the computer has calculated for him. Typically, none of them are easy. But he didn’t sign up for ‘easy’. “From what we managed to get from the garbled distress signal, they only have enough provisions and oxygen for another two. I’m not turning back.”

 

“Roger that, Cap,” she says, and they begin the dangerous trek through the shifting rocks. But Shiro is confident in himself, his crew, and his ship, and they make their way through the death trap without as much as a bump. It doesn’t take long to reach the general vicinity of the stranded craft anyway; They manage to contact the crew and track the signal to a precise location. Everything is going smoothly, and it’s set to be an easy in-and-out rescue op. 

 

“Hang tight, we’ll be with you in five,” Shiro instructs, then cuts contact with the other vessel in preparation to make their approach. 

 

“We have a problem,” Kono says. “I’m picking up-”

 

“Movement!” Shiro hisses between his teeth as he yanks the controls sharply to the left, narrowly avoiding colliding with the rock suddenly careening towards them. Of  _ course _ there’s movement. His display goes red as the computer struggles to warn him about multiple changes in the surrounding area and lock onto rogue projectiles with impact trajectories. “Well that’s just  _ peachy.  _ What the hell set them off?”

 

“No idea, but if we don’t go back now we’re an asteroid sandwich!” she replies.

 

“We’re not leaving these people. Now strap in and re-establish comms with the  _ Skimmer, _ ” he orders through gritted teeth, less at her suggestion and more at the escalating situation as he guides the shuttle through the disturbed field. “ _ Skimmer,  _ change of plans. Get suited up and outside, you’re going to have to jump to us. Keep your channels open, we’ll be in contact again soon.”

 

“Are you  _ nuts _ ?” Kono demands as the other crew gives a hesitant affirmative.

 

“We’ll find out in a minute. Start calculating our flight path and their jump trajectory, find me the intersection. We need to be able to send the timing and optimal path to their suits.” Two enormous boulders collide overhead, knocking each other in different directions and sending debris scattering from the site of impact. It’s impossible even for Shiro to avoid it all.

 

“We’re hit!” Matt says unnecessarily as the shuttle shudders from the impact, swiping and keying furiously on his controls.

 

“Damage report,” Shiro says, keeping a level head. They’ve  _ got this.  _ He’s never had a failure before, and he doesn’t plan on getting one now. 

 

“Starboard stern jet one is out, monitoring sensors on two have gone dark,” the engineer replies. “I can’t re-establish a connection, Shiro. There’s no way to tell if it’s still working or not.”

 

“Well, shit. So much for an easy rescue,” Shiro says under his breath. There’s a slight loss of power when he pulls left, but no way to know for certain how many are gone, not now. For the move he’s planning it’ll be fine if he’s down one, but he can’t risk trying to pull it off if he’s missing two of them. He focuses his attention on the movement of the shuttle, his brows knotting in concentration; his gut tells him that the difference in propulsion is too small for the shuttle to be missing any more than one. He nods to himself once, making the decision. “Kono, get those calculations sent to our friends. Matt, I need you ready to divert all power to the port stern and starboard bow thrusters on my order when we pick the other crew up.”

 

“Yessir,” the tech says, then sputters. “Wait, no, what?”

 

“We’re gonna one-eighty this thing. Trust me, it’ll be fun!” he explains, his voice pitching just a tad higher than he’s entirely comfortable with.

 

“We have a visual on the crew,” Kono says sharply. “Their jetpacks are calibrated, we just need to give the signal.”

 

“Open the cargo bay door and start giving them a countdown,” Shiro says, grunting with effort as he pulls the shuttle into position, keeping tightly to the straight path on his screen that runs perpendicular to the path of the other crew - he can see them in his peripheral vision now, four people suited up and crouched on the roof of their battered scout ship, staying in place with nothing but their mag boots. Behind him he hears Kono in contact with them, counting down.

 

_ Two… one… Now! _

 

The crew activate their jetpacks. Shiro’s heart is in his throat as his eyes dart between his flight path and the numbers on his screen. 

 

_ Come on, come on…  _

 

They’re out of his field of vision, and then there’s a series of heavy clunks.

 

“We got em! Closing off the cargo bay!” Kono calls out, not bothering to disguise the sheer shock in her voice.  Shiro doesn’t mind because he’s really fucking amazed that it worked, too. He can only afford to give the thought a split second of his time, however, on account of being on a collision course with an asteroid the size of a large building.

 

“Matt, now!” Shiro shouts. If his gut was wrong and they’re missing two of their thrusters, they’re going to become that asteroid sandwich Kono was worried about. 

 

The momentum that they’ve gathered continues to carry them forward even as the engineer diverts all available power to the instructed jets and Shiro pulls on the controls with one hand, adjusting sliders with the other. The propulsion acting on the shuttle from different directions on opposite ends causes it to turn on its axis, and Shiro has to work expertly with the controls to stop them from over-spinning and shooting into another death rock, activating the opposing thrusters to straighten them up and making adjustments for the power imbalance of the missing jet. 

 

As soon as the shuttle has flipped he orders all power shifted to forward thrust, then slams the controls forward. They jolt roughly as the shuttle fights against its previous momentum, and then they’re pushed back into their seats by the G-force as it accelerates in the opposite direction, moving just as the huge asteroid barrels through the exact space in the void that they had recently occupied. 

 

But now they’re going fast -  _ too fast!,  _ Matt yells. The display in front of him is struggling to find a path through the rapidly colliding rocks. 

 

Shiro grins and swipes his now useless navigation system from the window.

 

“Hold on to your hats, boys ‘n girls!” he says, then sends the shuttle into an arcing roll around a cluster of ice, dives beneath another, and pulls up sharply, tilting the shuttle onto its side to slip through a gap between two asteroids seconds before they crash together in a silent explosion. It takes all three of them to make this work; Matt has to constantly regulate power distribution and monitor systems, activating and deactivating them in a flash, while Kono tracks the movement of the field outside of Shiro’s field of view, making sure nothing is going to collide with them out of nowhere.

 

On a lightning fast suggestion from Kono they squeeze through an abandoned mining tunnel bored right through a colossal lump of ice and rock, adjusting the shuttle to take into account the movement of the asteroid. The passageways twist and turn, with old steel girders and damaged platforms sticking out of the walls at all angles, but Shiro navigates through the grasping metal fingers with skill and precision. When they burst from the exit on the other side they’re almost back in the empty void. Shiro twists around the smaller, perhaps only elephant-sized pieces of rock and debris, and then they’re free. 

  
  
  


**_SIMULATION PASSED_ **

  
  
  


Shiro punches the air with a shout of victory as the screens shut off around them, and the fake sounds of engines and ship systems fade to nothing. As the three of them jump to their feet and begin to congratulate each other, there’s a knock on the shuttle door. They exit into the clinical white light of the simulation room to the clapping and whistling of their classmates; with a flourish of his hand, Shiro takes an exaggerated bow.

 

“Alright, alright,” Iverson grumbles at him, but there’s an amused glimmer in his eye as they stand at ease. “Good work you three, but there’s always room for improvement. Holt, tell me one thing that could have been done better.”

 

“Shiro should have checked that his telepathy was working before the mission, sir,” Mat responds with a perfectly straight face, earning sniggers from everyone in the room. Iverson pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, then turns to Shiro. 

 

“Shirogane?” he asks with a tone that says  _ please consider giving me a correct answer rather than some smart-ass comment.  _ Shiro keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead and fights off the smirk attempting to tug on the corner of his lips.

 

“Matt should have checked that his mouth was working before the mission, sir,” he answers, and sees all signs of life leave his professor’s body. He grins. “Communication between crew members is vital to the success of every mission. Matt should have remembered to speak up, and I should have explained my action plan fully to both Matt and Kono before execution.”

 

“Alright, we got to a straight answer in the end, at least,” Iverson sighs. “Very good. Palu?”

 

“I can’t think of anything to add, sir,” Kono replies. 

 

Satisfied, Iverson turns to the rest of the class. “Can anyone tell me what other mistake these three made during their simulation?”

 

“Uhh, Holt didn’t notice the blip on the monitoring system..?” One student offers in uncertainty. 

 

“That, and they nearly broke my  _ goddamn  _ computer again by pulling a stunt our programmers didn’t account for!” Iverson responds, and gets a chorus of laughs and cheers in return. Shiro, Kono and Matt bump their fists together.  

 

“Does that mean class is cancelled?” Another student asks hopefully.

 

“I said  _ nearly _ , cadet. And for that, you’re up next,” the professor replies, smirking as the student groans and trudges up the walkway. While the student and his team climb into the simulator, Iverson waves them off. “You three, take the rest of the period to study. Dismissed.”

 

“If I may, sir, I’d like to point out and commend Kono’s actions during the simulation,” Shiro says as the other two salute and begin to descend the walkway to the simulation chamber. They pause, Kono frowning at him in confusion. “Speaking up to a commanding officer when in doubt about your orders is important to maintain a healthy crew relationship, and I found it admirable that she was unafraid to do so.” 

 

“Agreed. Thank you for pointing that out, cadet,” Iverson smiles at him, and then nods to Kono. “Well done Palu.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” Kono blushes. 

 

“Now get out of my classroom and go study,” he says to the three of them. 

 

“Cafeteria?” Shiro asks conspiratorially out of the side of his mouth as they reach the door. The other two nod enthusiastically.

  
  


~*~

  
  
  
  


“Sorry for doubting you, Shiro,” Kono says to him in the corridor a few minutes later as he stops at his locker. He drops his bag to the floor and begins rummaging through its contents, glancing up at the timetable taped to the inside of his locker door to check what books he does and doesn’t need. 

 

“Hey, like I said, it’s good of you to speak up if you’re unsure about an order. Besides, you’ve only been here a few weeks. You don’t really know me or the way things work yet,” Shiro responds comfortingly, sliding a few textbooks into the locker and pulling another out, and gives her a reassuring smile. She transferred from a different school at the start of the new school year, and hasn’t quite gotten used to the more action-oriented sims compared to the cargo runs she had previously trained for. “We’re allowed to be a little more adventurous here.”

 

“Looks to me like you take that idea and run with it, Golden Boy,” she says amusedly and he shrugs, embarrassed at the name. It’s not the first time he’s been called that, and it’s not going to be the last.

 

“Yeah, well…” he trails off, not quite sure what to say, but he’s saved from an awkward silence by Matt jogging up to them. Shiro frowns in concern. “What’s up?”

 

“Couple’a first years in a fist fight,” he explains, slightly breathless. He clearly spent his summer doing everything  _ but _ his fitness regime, and Shiro doesn’t blame him. After the end of year exams, he was pretty sure Matt had started going into video game withdrawal. Shiro shuts his locker with a groan and rests his forehead against the cold metal.

 

“I take it everyone else is too busy cheering them on to break it up?” he sighs.

 

“As usual.”

 

“It’s not your responsibility to get involved with squabbling first-years,” Kono raises an eyebrow as Shiro hoists his bag over his shoulder. 

 

“My…  _ reputation _ usually manages to break things up and move them along before the professors get there,” he starts a brisk pace in the direction Matt had come from. 

 

“Just let them get a detention, dude,” she says. Matt shakes his head.

 

“Our fearless fellow cadet is morally obligated to save as many students as possible from the fiery pits of detention hell,” the techie informs her seriously, pushing his glasses up his nose. “It’s his superhero calling.”

 

“More like my supervillain origin story,” Shiro grumbles beneath his breath as he hears the commotion in the distance. His companions snigger and follow as he breaks into a slow jog, rounding the corner to find the source of the disruption. Students of all levels - and many of whom should definitely know better, Shiro thinks - are gathered in a circle around two first years facing each other down. He’s pushing his way through the crowd when the one with his back to Shiro, a student with long black hair tied back in a messy ponytail, manages to grab a fistful of the other student’s uniform.

 

“Say it again, shithead! I dare you!” he snarls. 

 

“That's enough!” Shiro says sharply, managing to push through the last of the crowd, but the two boys ignore him. The one with the black hair has pulled his fist back, readying a punch. Shiro snatches the boy's wrist before it can do any damage, pulling him back. “I said  _ enough _ !”

 

“Let go of me!” the younger boy snaps and turns on him, eyes burning with fury, but his demand falls on deaf ears. The chatter of the surrounding crowd melts into the background as Shiro stares in shock at the angular features and unmistakable indigo eyes glaring up at him. 

 

It's been more than ten years since Shiro has seen that face. 

 

“Keith?” he whispers. It’s him - ten years older, sporting a busted lip and the beginnings of a shiner on his right eye, but Shiro  _ knows _ it’s him. There’s instant recognition in the other boy’s face, too; his eyes widen and his clenched jaw goes slack. His shoulders slump. The moment seems to drag out for an eon until Keith’s eyes flash with abject horror and he jerks out of Shiro’s grip. The world comes crashing back down around them, the sound of the gathered crowd now reduced to whispers and confused murmurs. 

 

_ Shiro  _ knows _ this jerk? _

 

_ Who the heck is Keith?  _

 

_ He looks like he’s seen a ghost.  _

 

The boy that Keith had been fighting has taken the distraction as his opportunity to scramble away from the scene leaving just the two of them - Keith scoops his tattered schoolbag from the floor and attempts to do the same without another word to him. Shiro opens his mouth to call the other boy back, but he’s beaten to the punch by a much angrier shout.

 

_ “KOGANE!” _

 

Keith freezes mid-step and visibly flinches as Mrs Montgomery’s voice cuts through the babble of the crowd. Shiro is still standing, dumbfounded, as the professor pushes past him and puts a firm hand on his childhood friend’s shoulder. 

 

“With me. Now,” she instructs, turning him on the spot and marching him back in the other direction. Shiro tries to meet Keith’s eyes as he’s marched past, but Keith’s gaze remains fixed on the floor as the crowd parts respectfully for the professor and her victim. Most of the gathered students, their entertainment cancelled, filter off down the corridors or head back to their lockers, but not without giving Shiro some questioning looks. He doesn’t pay them much attention; he’s too busy staring at the spot where Mrs Montgomery and his  _ childhood friend  _ disappeared around a corner, heading towards her office.

 

_ He knew who I was. Why didn't he say anything?  _

 

“You know that guy, Shiro?” Matt's voice cuts through his thoughts. 

 

“Used to. Long time ago…” he replies distractedly, his voice light. “Old friend.”

 

“Huh, small world,” Matt says. His question answered, the other boy's mind moves to what it considers a more pressing matter and he grabs a strap on Shiro’s bag, pulling towards the cafeteria. “We gonna get food or what? It's pasta daaaaay!”

 

But Shiro shakes his head as he steadies himself against the pull. “No, I… I think I'm good, actually. You two go on ahead. I’ll catch up later.” He waves them away absently. 

 

“Suuure… okay. We'll save you a seat,” Matt says with a raised eyebrow. He looks back over his shoulder more than once as he and Kono walk in the opposite direction, but Shiro has already begun his trek towards Mrs Montgomery’s office. 

  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  


_ “Why are your eyes like that?”  _

 

_ Keith looks up from the paper in front of him, where his finest creation yet is taking place. The starblaster 3 is quite possibly the coolest spaceship to ever be designed. Shiro's is pretty cool too, though. But the other boy isn't paying attention to his half-finished drawing. His chin is rested on his hand, his eyes narrowed as he examines Keith's face - or, more accurately, his eyes. Keith hunches in on himself slightly.  _

 

_ “Like what?” he asks defensively.  _

 

_ “Purple,” Shiro answers.  _

 

_ “They're blue,” Keith replies, knowing full well that they’re not. _

 

_ “Nuh-uh, they're purple. I've never seen anyone else with purple eyes.” _

 

_ “Well  _ I've  _ never seen anyone else with  _ grey  _ eyes,” Keith retorts. Shiro frowns.  _

 

_ “My mom and dad have grey eyes.” _

 

_ “Oh.” _

 

_ “They said that's why I have grey eyes. And black hair. Your dad doesn't have purple eyes though. What colour eyes did your other parent have?”  _

 

_ “Don't know,” Keith mumbles. “Can't remember. Mom went away when I was little.” _

 

_ “Oh.” _

 

_ “I guess she must have had purple ones, though,” he adds reluctantly.  _

 

_ “Cool,” Shiro says. He gives Keith a reassuring smile. “I wish I had purple eyes. They're awesome.” _

  
  
  


_ ~*~ _

  
  
  


Shiro would never claim to be one for eavesdropping, but his curiosity wrestles his morals to the ground as he waits outside Mrs Montgomery’s office. So here he is, beneath a miniscule vent that allows air to flow between the sealed compartmented rooms of the Garrison, with his arms folded across his chest and one foot back against the wall. He nods at the occasional passerby, doing his best to look as unsuspicious as possible. 

 

“...only brush these incidents under the rug so many times, Kogane. You’re pushing the limit already,” Mrs Montgomery’s voice says tiredly. Years of teaching have given her a voice that carries well, remaining clear enough to make out from his position. Keith’s, on the other hand, is difficult to hear. 

 

“... called …  _ supposed _ to do?” Shiro catches.

 

“Ignore it. Report it. Anything but a fistfight. You are potentially one of the best students we’ve ever had, Keith. Don’t let your temper blow this for you,” she replies. Keith mumbles something in response, and she sighs. “Alright. Head to the nurse’s office to get something for that eye.”

 

Shiro hears the scrape of chairs, and a moment later the door beside him opens with a hydraulic hiss. He pushes himself off the wall as Keith exits; The younger boy takes one brief, horrified look at him before putting his head down and walking briskly away. 

 

“Can I help you, Mr Shirogane?” Mrs Montgomery has arrived at the door, her eyebrow raised. She saw Keith’s brief pause and his hurried walk, and she’s looking at him curiously. 

 

“Uh, no, ma’am, I was… waiting for... Keith, uh…” he looks between her and the rapidly dwindling shape of the other student then gives her a shrug and an embarrassed smile. There’s a time and a place for an explanation, but this isn’t it. “See ya, ma’am.”

 

He leaves a bemused teacher in his wake as he jogs off down the corridor to catch up with Keith, who says nothing as Shiro slows and falls into step beside him. Their height difference hasn’t gotten much smaller during their time apart; The top of Keith’s head is only about level with Shiro’s chin. 

 

“Hi,” Shiro says lamely after a few painfully awkward seconds of silence. 

 

“Go away,” Keith replies immediately. Not exactly what Shiro had expected; It makes him pause for a moment while Keith continues walking, and he jogs forward a few paces to catch up.

 

“Seriously? Ten years and that’s what you say?” he feels more than a little offended by the response. Keith doesn’t even look at him. 

 

“Eleven. You don’t want to talk to me.”

 

“I kind of  _ do, _ actually.”

 

“Leave me alone.”

 

“Okay, no,” Shiro grabs his sleeve and pulls him to a stop, and Keith tugs his uniform out of Shiro’s grip with a thunderous look. “What’s your problem?”

 

“Right now? You,” he answers poisonously. 

 

As he spins on his heel and stalks off, the venom in his voice has left Shiro paralyzed - all he can do is stare and wonder what the  _ hell _ he’s done to deserve this. He’s spent eleven years thinking about his old friend - wondering where he was, what he was doing, how he’d changed, and he’d be lying if he said that he hadn’t lost himself in daydreams about reuniting again, scenarios that were so wonderful and idealistic that they deserved to happen under some sort of rose-tinted filter. They’d find out what the other had been up to for all these years, smile and joke and share stories of everything they’d missed, and become best friends again almost immediately. 

 

None of them ever involved Keith hating him for no reason. 

 

_ Note to self: lower all future expectations for anything and everything by about ninety percent.  _

 

Keith has long since left his sight, now. With the paralysis wearing off, Shiro begins to put one foot in front of the other in the direction of the cafeteria. Maybe advice from Matt and a bowl of food will help him figure out what’s going on and what the hell he can do about it.

  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  


“So how did it go?” Matt struggles to speak around his mouthful of carbonara as Shiro drops his tray to the table and slumps onto the opposite bench. He sighs and props his cheek against his hand, staring into the bowl of pasta with disinterest. Matt swallows his food and says, “That bad, huh.”

 

“He refused to talk to me,” Shiro says glumly, poking at his meal with a fork. 

 

“Who is he to you, anyway?”

 

“He was my best friend when I was a kid,” he replies. That earns a look of surprise from the bespectacled student. 

 

“Woah. That sucks.”

 

“Tell me about it. I spend eleven years thinking about him, and when we finally meet again he tells me to piss off,” he sighs. He glances up at Matt and can tell by the way he’s fidgeting that the other student is desperate to talk about something. “What is it?”

 

“So I did some research about your buddy,” he answers almost too quickly and a little too loud, then clears his throat and leans in closer as he pulls out his tablet. He lowers his voice and keeps talking as he types into the search bar. “I did some research, and you’re gonna love this. I asked around about the first year with the temper, and everyone says the same thing.  _ He’s the guy that beat your entrance exam score.” _

 

“Seriously?” Shiro’s eyes widen a fraction. He had been impressed to learn that it had been beaten at the start of the year several weeks ago, but never managed to find out who had done it at the time. Matt nods enthusiastically.

 

“The guy is a  _ genius _ pilot, and rumor has it the Garrison picked him up after one of the tutors saw a viral video of him racing.  _ The  _ viral video,” he says, like that’s supposed to mean something.

 

“‘ _ The’ _ ?” Shiro asks, raising an eyebrow. Matt pushes his glasses up his nose and shoots him a brief look. 

 

“Yeah. Y’know. The one that was  _ everywhere _ for a few weeks over the summer, of the guy on the shitty blue hoverbike tearing up his town?” he explains. Shiro’s blank look seems to communicate all the necessary information. “Oh my God, how did you  _ not see it? _ ”

 

“I was with family all summer!” Shiro replies. 

 

“What, they don’t have internet in Japan?” 

 

“I was  _ busy _ .”

 

“Whatever,” Matt waves him off dismissively, then presses something on his tablet and turns it to Shiro. Shiro watches the video before him in awe as Matt says, “This is your buddy, Shiro. Illegal street racer Keith Kogane.”

  
  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  


Illegal street racer and all-round jackass Keith Kogane throws his bag into the corner when he returns to his room. The door shuts behind him and he slumps back against it, pressing the ice pack against his bruising face, and sighs. Three weeks of ducking out of sight and avoiding common areas, and Shiro finally discovers that he’s here because he breaks up his  _ fight _ . There could not have been a less opportune time for them to finally stumble into each other. 

 

“Idiot,” Keith grumbles to himself. He had discovered that Shiro attended the Garrison before the academic year even started - opening up the Galaxy Garrison website and being greeted with the shy but confident smile of the top student and his old best friend had certainly made for an interesting mix of emotions. He had made the decision that evening to avoid Shiro for as long as possible, despite the part of him that was dying to reunite with the older boy. 

 

_ It’s better that way, _ he had thought. 

 

That has now failed horribly, and step two has come up and hit him in the face - or rather, grabbed his wrist - much sooner than he had planned. He remembers the look on Shiro’s face as he left him standing in the corridor and screws his eyes shut in a vain attempt to push the memory out of his mind, but they remain long after he’s changed out of his uniform and sat himself down to read over his books for tomorrow. 

 

_ It’s better this way, _ he keeps telling himself, as though it’ll get rid of the devastated expression he can’t stop seeing. He never intended for it to sound as cruel as it had, but perhaps that level of cruelty was the only thing that was going to keep Shiro away.

 

Now, if only his aching chest could get the memo. 


	4. Confrontations and Curfews

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has been going to great lengths to avoid Shiro, who struggles to find out why. Some minor rule-breaking may be required to finally get a straight answer.

The last few days have been torture for Shiro. Now that he knows Keith is there, he sees him constantly, ducking out of view or turning on his heel and walking in the opposite direction whenever he spots him too. Shiro cannot for the life of him understand why Keith avoids him so intently, and his confusion is only strengthened when he discovers that, realistically, he should have bumped into Keith  _ weeks  _ ago.

 

Through a favour and a few sweet smiles he manages to get his hands on the timetable for Keith’s class, and the way their schedules line up suggests that they should have passed each other in the corridor every day at  _ least _ once. There’s no way he wouldn’t have spotted him. Upon learning this Shiro followed a hunch and took a few longer, alternate routes to different classes, and sure enough, ended up seeing Keith coming the other way each time. The other student wanted to avoid him so badly that he planned entire routes around the building just to stay out of his sight. 

 

“That’s fucking  _ weird _ , Shiro,” Matt had said when he shared this information, and Shiro had to agree. It was baffling. The last time he saw Keith had been emotional, but they parted as friends -  _ best  _ friends, in fact. He had never managed to find Keith on any sort of social media - not for lack of trying, of course - and they didn’t have each other’s numbers before their separation, so it can’t be put down to drifting apart or a falling out of any kind. 

 

It’s starting to eat away at him with every spare second between classes or in his down time, and on this particular day it’s caused him to zone out twice in the middle of a morning lecture on the correct landing procedures in low gravity atmospheres. At this point, Matt decides to intervene. The moment they exit the classroom, he drags him to the side.

 

“Dude, you gotta drop this Keith thing,” he says with hushed tones to avoid drawing attention to their conversation. No one spares them a glance, but that’s more to do with their total disinterest than Matt’s attempt at stealth. 

 

“It’s _ killing _ me, Matt. I have no idea why he hates me so much,” Shiro says, hearing the hint of distress in his own voice. God, this was getting to him a lot more than he wanted to admit to himself. Matt sighs and ruffles his already scruffy mop of hair, pouting thoughtfully. 

 

“Get his room number, go to it after class hours end. He won’t be able to run off like a startled rabbit if he’s cornered in his room.”

 

“I don’t want to  _ force _ him to talk to me,” Shiro grimaces at the thought. 

 

“There is  _ literally _ no other way you’re going to be able to speak a single word to this guy. If he doesn’t give you an answer there, you’re not going to get one,” Matt says, then pats his arm sympathetically. “This shit is gonna drive you nuts if you don’t try to do something about it.”

 

“Too late, it already has,” Shiro sighs, dragging his hand down his face. While he’s not keen on the idea, Matt’s right; he has to try something, and this may as well be it. 

  
  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
  


Under the ‘small untruth’ that he has something of Keith’s that he needs to return, he discovers Keith’s room number, and at 7pm finds himself pacing in front of the door. There’s a very faint sound of music coming from the other side of the wall. He checks, double checks, and triple checks the door number, then paces a little more. Why is he so  _ nervous? _ He’s never nervous, and if he is, he’s so good at dealing with it that he doesn’t notice, but this is making his heart beat a little faster than its resting pace.

 

_ Just do it, you idiot. _

 

He takes a breath, steps up to the door, and knocks three times. The hint of music stops, and a few moments later the door opens. Keith’s expression, which had been curious upon answering an unexpected knock on his door, immediately changes to one of alarm for a brief second before morphing into something blank and hard, a freshly laid concrete slab. 

 

He closes the door in Shiro’s face without a word.

 

“Oh come on!” Shiro raises his voice in annoyance to be heard through the door. The music starts again. But now that he’s here, he’s not going to leave without even exchanging a single word with the other student; he knocks again, and isn’t surprised when the music doesn’t pause this time. So he knocks again. And again. 

 

“This is ridiculous, Keith. I think I deserve an explanation.”

 

Maybe it’s his imagination, but the music seems to decrease in volume. He can only just make it out now, the very faint thud of the beat carrying through the molecules of the heavy metal walls. With a sigh, Shiro rests his arm on the doorframe above him and hangs his head, dropping his voice slightly. The corridors are empty, but he figures that this is something far too personal to broadcast to everyone within potential range. 

 

“You seem pretty intent on acting like we’ve never met. I just want to know what I did to hurt you like this,” he says, hoping that his voice still permeates the door. The current song fades out, but another one doesn’t seem to take its place. “If you really don’t want to talk… I don’t get it, but I’ll respect it. I thought I should at least try to understand why you’re doing this before leaving you alone.”

 

Shiro thinks he can hear the muffled sounds of movement inside the room, like a drawer being opened or something being moved. The moment seems to drag out forever and with an eventual sigh, he pushes off the door. Fine. If Keith doesn’t want to give him an answer, he’s never going to get one. He’s about to leave when the door opens again. He blinks in surprise as Keith takes a quick glance at the empty corridor before standing back.

 

“In,” he says bluntly. Shiro’s mind is a little too confused to process the order, but his body complies for him anyway and he steps into the other boy’s room. The door is closed heavily behind him. 

 

The room is standard first year quarters, with a bed, desk, and chest of drawers, and a railing to hang your uniform from. As is standard, Keith has some basic items from home - the bedsheets are his own, a plain, deep red, and he has a small tv and a battered old playstation on one side of the desk. On top of the chest of drawers there are a few folders of work that he hasn’t yet filed away under his desk, and some old books from home. There are also a couple of rows of battered miniature models of various ships and vehicles, and an empty gap in the middle. Shiro has evidently interrupted Keith’s homework; papers and textbooks are splayed on the bed, and a small portable speaker sits on the pillow, currently silent. He turns his attention to its owner.

 

Keith, in red sweats and a plain black t-shirt, glares at him with his arms folded across his chest, his posture stiff and defensive. 

 

“You don’t want to be my friend, Shirogane,” Keith says before Shiro can get a word in. The use of his full last name feels formal and  _ wrong _ , especially coming from the boy who gave him his nickname in the first place. 

 

“Before Monday we hadn’t seen each other in  _ eleven years. _ What could I have possibly done to you to deserve this?” Shiro asks despairingly. He wants something,  _ anything _ to explain why Keith has been avoiding him so thoroughly. Keith shrugs.

 

“You didn’t do anything.”

 

“Then what the  _ hell  _ is going on with you? Because I can’t even get a civil ‘hello’ from my childhood best friend and I don’t know why!” his voice raises slightly with the statement, despite his attempts to keep it level. 

 

“You don’t want anything to do with me. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone, and everything will be fine,” Keith responds through gritted teeth, refusing to meet his gaze. He’s trying to hide it, but Shiro can see the hurt in his eyes as clear as day. It only adds to his confusion. “Stop trying to be buddies with me. I’m not interested and I don’t care.”

 

Shiro looks at the empty space among the models and remembers the muffled sound of closing drawers, and a wild, bordering on unbelievable hunch forms in his head. Without another word he turns to Keith’s chest of drawers and pulls the top drawer open, reaching in and plucking something out before Keith finishes his protest. Keith is frozen mid-step, and the hand that had been reaching out to stop Shiro’s movement falls back to his side as Shiro looks down at the item in his hand that had been hastily hidden. 

 

It’s a small model hoverbike in astonishingly immaculate condition, considering it’s over ten years old. Shiro lets the silence settle over them, over his own mess of jumbled, perplexed thoughts and Keith’s look of alarm. Keith, who has just claimed to not give two shits about him, yet kept his gift for so long, apparently so attached to it that he brought it with him across the country. Compared to his other models, this one is almost obsessively cared for, and the empty space it’s supposed to occupy among the others is front and center. Shiro tosses it into the air and snatches it up on its way back down, turning it over in his palm a few times before throwing it to Keith. The younger boy catches it reflexively.

 

“Come find me when you’re ready to stop lying to yourself,” Shiro’s voice is flat and bitter as he turns and leaves the room. 

  
  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
  


The next morning, the look on Shiro’s face is enough to silence any questions that Matt was going to ask. His foul mood is strengthened by a lack of sleep, to the point where he doesn’t even say hello to his classmate as he slides into the bench opposite with his breakfast. Matt gets all the information he needs from his demeanor and doesn’t attempt to start any conversation, which Shiro would probably appreciate a lot more if he could feel anything other than the hurt that has its iron grasp around his heart, the annoyance and the confusion that kept him awake. 

 

He just doesn’t  _ get it. _

 

Cheerful greetings die in the throats of acquaintances and what Matt likes to call his  _ admirers _ as he passes them in the corridor between classes, but by the end of third period he’s starting to feel guilty about it. None of them caused this mood, and they don’t deserve to deal with his grumpy silence and perpetual glare. 

 

“Sorry,” he sighs to Matt as they pause at their lockers after class. Matt glances at him as he enters the code for his locker with a raised eyebrow. 

 

“For what?” he asks, trailing his finger down the timetable to see what books he needs to retrieve. Shiro punches in the code to his own locker and pauses with his fingers hooked around the edge as it pops open.

 

“Being a silent jerk all day.”

 

“Nah, you’re good buddy,” Matt dismisses him with a wave of his hand. “I understand. Last night obviously didn’t go well.”

 

“That’s an understatement,” Shiro huffs and pulls open the small metal door. When he does so, a small piece of folded paper flutters out and falls to the floor by his feet. He frowns and stoops to pick it up. It’s a scrap that’s been torn from the inside of a workbook, by the looks of it, and upon unfolding it he sees something written on the inside. The message is brief and the handwriting is angular and scratchy.

 

 

_ Roof. 10pm.  _

_ -K _

 

 

A flare of hope ignites in Shiro’s chest, but he tries to keep it relatively dim. He doesn’t want to expect anything, not now. Matt cranes his neck over in an attempt to peer at the paper.

 

“What is it?” he asks. Shiro clears his throat and shoves the slip into his pocket. 

 

“Nothing. Just scrap paper,” he lies. Matt gives him his best ‘I know you’re lying, but I’m not going to push it’ stare, then shrugs and goes back to organising his things. Shiro’s mind runs a mile a minute as he tries to focus on getting the books he needs for his next lessons, causing him to triple-check his timetable before getting everything. Maybe Keith is finally going to give him some answers, and he’s equal parts nervous and excited at the prospect.

 

But why the  _ roof _ , of all places? 

 

The school day seems to drag on forever, and the anticipation has Shiro pacing his room in scuffed jeans and a t-shirt afterwards. He’s snuck up to the roof plenty of times during his time at the Garrison, so it won’t be much of a challenge to get by the security patrols. And on the off chance that he ever gets caught at some point, he thinks he has a pretty solid argument for his actions; ‘Really, what kind of space exploration institute doesn’t allow their students to  _ stargaze _ , sir?’

 

As it draws closer to ten, Shiro stops his pacing and grabs his Garrison hoodie from the back of his desk chair, pulling up the hood as he waits by his door. Like a well-oiled machine, he hears a member of the night watch pass at exactly 9.45 - he waits, leaving his room when the clock on his phone rolls over to 9.46, and begins making his way quietly through the empty halls of the barracks, occasionally ducking into a doorway or corridor to avoid the next patrol. He rounds a corner and sees his target: a plain and unassuming door set into a slight recess, with a manual metal bar to open it and a sign overhead labelling it as a fire escape. 

 

He’s about to run to it when he hears voices.

 

Shiro ducks into a narrow side corridor as a door further down the hall opens and a few of the professors step out, chatting amongst themselves. There must have been a late meeting. As the gaggle of staff disperses, most of the footsteps fade into the distance, but one set approaches his hiding spot.  _ Iverson, _ Shiro thinks as he identifies the slightly heavier step of one foot. An old crash injury that he used as a scare tactic for correct landing procedures. 

 

He takes in a breath and presses himself to the wall, waiting as Iverson walks by, then silently moves out around the corner and jogs over to the door. He looks up and down the corridor briefly just to be sure that there’s no one else coming, then silently pushes down on the bar and eases the door open, hoping that the hinges are still well-oiled. They don’t make a sound as he slips through and closes the door gently behind himself, then breathes a small sigh of relief. The hard part is over - at least until he has to sneak back  _ in. _ He makes his way up the narrow concrete stairs that spiral upwards towards the flat roof of the Garrison complex and pushes open the door at the top. 

 

A gust of chill wind hits him as he steps out into the night air. With the waning moon and the lack of nearby settlements, the night sky is full of stars, flickering in their set patterns and clusters. But for once he doesn’t take much notice of it, because his attention is fixed on the shape sitting on a blanket about twenty feet in front of him. Steam is rising from the mug that he’s cradling in his hand, drifting up to dissipate into nothing as he stares up at the starscape above. He didn’t turn at the sound of the door opening or show any other sign that he’s aware of Shiro’s arrival, but he offers a quiet greeting as Shiro approaches.

 

“Hey,” Keith says, his voice much softer than it’s been during their previous encounters. He doesn’t take his eyes off the sky. 

 

“Hi,” Shiro responds. He’s not sure what he’s expected to do until Keith pats the blanket beside him. 

 

“Cocoa?” he says as Shiro slowly sits cross-legged on the other side of the blanket. Keith lifts a thermal flash and an empty mug from his satchel and starts unscrewing the lid. 

 

“Uh… sure,” he replies carefully. He’s not entirely sure what’s happening, and Keith’s casual demeanor is extremely off-putting after their previous conversations. A steaming mug is offered to him and he takes it, taking a sip. It’s good quality; thick and creamy, with just the right amount of sweetness. Keith is silent as he puts the lid back on the flask and picks his own mug up again, staring into the swirling brown liquid. 

 

“Expected you to be late, trying to sneak past the night watch.”

 

“You think this is the first time I’ve snuck onto the roof?” he says, allowing his voice to carry a hint of amusement. Keith blinks up at him in surprise.

 

“You telling me that the Garrison Golden Boy breaks the rules?” he smirks, clearly impressed. “How does  _ that _ work?”

 

“I just don’t get caught,” Shiro grins. He leans back on one hand, his fingers brushing the frayed edge of the old blanket. “Besides, I’ve always been good at getting onto roofs.” Keith snorts at that.

 

“I don’t think climbing a ladder at the side of your house equates to sneaking around a military base after curfew, Shiro,” he responds and then his face falls, his expression threatening to calcify again. He clears his throat. “Shirogane.”

 

“No, we’re not doing that again. You know it’s just Shiro,” he sighs heavily and sets his mug to the side. They had started to fall immediately into comfortable conversation, and now it’s slipping through his fingers like sand. Keith glares into his cocoa like it’s wronged him somehow, saying nothing. “You invited me up here for a reason, Keith. I doubt it was to keep this up.”

 

Keith remains silent and still for a moment before his shoulders slump and the stony demeanor fades once more. Then he reaches into his satchel and pulls out the small hoverbike model, turns it over in his hand, and examines it in the moonlight. 

 

“You were wrong, you know. I wasn’t lying to myself,” he says eventually, holding the bike by one of the wings. “I was  _ trying _ to lie to  _ you _ .”

 

“That probably would have worked better if you didn’t bring this with you,” Shiro attempts a lighthearted jibe and is relieved when he gets a slight if somewhat sad smirk in return.

 

“Probably. But this stayed by my bed every night for the past eleven years, I wasn’t about to break the streak,” he says. Shiro says nothing, getting the sense that he has more to add. The younger student swallows thickly, and his voice shakes slightly as he adds, “You were the last friend I had.”

 

Shiro feels his heart clench; something about Keith’s tone tells him that that wasn’t an exaggeration. “So why have you been avoiding me?” he asks gently. He feels that Keith may not get to the point himself without some encouragement. 

 

“You’re… you,” Keith gestures vaguely in his direction, plucking at loose threads on the rough woollen blanket beneath them. “You’re the star pupil, a great person, and everyone loves you. You’re the same as you’ve always been.”

 

“And you’re not?” 

 

Keith scoffs at that and takes a mouthful of cocoa. “I’m a hard-headed asshole with a criminal record and I get into fights a lot. Nobody likes me.”

 

“I do,” Shiro replies simply. Keith tilts his head skeptically. 

 

“You don’t know me anymore.”

 

“You’re stubborn, you do shit you’re not supposed to, and you pick fights with idiots. Trust me, you haven’t changed,” Shiro grins. “I still remember having to explain to Mr Kogane that you were going to be late home because you were in detention after punching someone and giving them a nosebleed.”

 

“He was trying to stomp on a frog!” Keith reasons indignantly. “It would’ve been dead if I had gone to get a teacher first. Besides, what kind of sick fuck stomps on animals?”

 

“I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it, I’m just making a point. So what if other people don’t like you? It didn’t stop me from liking you before.”

 

“It’s  _ different _ now,” Keith sighs exasperatedly, as though what he’s trying to get across is as obvious as the moon in the sky. “It doesn’t matter if I want to be your friend again or not; you have a genuine reputation to keep. You’re going places, Shirogane, and being buddies with someone like me isn’t going to help you get there.”

 

“You’re worried about my  _ career? _ ” Shiro says incredulously. Of all the reasons he had thought of for Keith’s avoidance, this wasn’t one of them.

 

“ _ Obviously,” _ Keith replies, as though there couldn’t have been any question about it in the first place. Shiro can’t help it - he laughs.

 

“And you really think you’re a different person?” Shiro chuckles, looking at the younger boy in amusement as he pouts. “You still worry about everyone else far more than you worry about yourself.”

 

“Just you, really. I want you to get to that goddamn moon base,” Keith admits with a shy grin, jerking his head towards the semi-circular disc in the sky above.

 

“My friendships aren’t going to negatively affect my future. Besides, I heard you smashed my entrance exam scores out of the park,” Shiro adds knowingly, bumping their shoulders together gently. “You’re kind of a star pupil yourself. And you’re one  _ hell _ of a hoverbike flyer, man.”

 

“Yeah, well…” Keith rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, an embarrassed habit he’s had since they were kids. There’s a hint of a blush on his cheeks under the moonlight as he looks up to the stars.

 

“Personally,” Shiro starts slowly after a pause, drinking the last of his cooling cocoa. “I think getting to that moonbase would be much more exciting if I had one more friend to share the experience with.”

 

“You think?” Keith hums thoughtfully, leaning back on his elbows. 

 

“Pretty sure about it, actually.”

 

“How sure?”

 

“Like… one hundred percent sure.”

 

“Wow,” Keith muses, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. They sparkle with amusement, and he breaks into a wide smile. “That’s pretty sure, alright.”

 

“I’ve done the math,” Shiro grins and leans back to mirror Keith’s pose. The stars shimmer and dance overhead - a single shooting star briefly flashes in and out of existence as something small burns up in the atmosphere, never to reach its destination. “Which I’m still great at, by the way.”

 

“That’s because you’re a fucking nerd.”

 

“Says the only guy in his year who recently got full marks in three separate class tests,” Shiro says. Keith stares at him.

 

“How do you-”

 

“I have a tech guy,” he explains smugly. Keith rolls his eyes. 

 

“I bet he does all your IT homework.”

 

“Not  _ all _ of it,” Shiro jokes defensively, and Keith snorts. There’s a moment of silence before he speaks again.

 

“Sorry for being a dick, Shiro,” Keith says, his voice quieter than before. “I thought it was for the best.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Shiro shrugs and gives him a reassuring smile. Whatever wrong foot they had started off on, now they have a chance to get back on track. He’s just glad to finally have Keith back.

 

They fall into a discussion that meanders this way and that, never going in any particular direction, and it feels like the most natural conversation that Shiro has ever had. It’s so  _ easy _ to talk to Keith even after so many years separated, and he feels an odd kind of peace, like something in the universe has slotted back into place. 

 

When they eventually check the time several hours later and swear at the numbers on the screen in front of them, they pack up Keith’s blanket and flask and sneak quietly back down into the barracks. 

 

“Breakfast tomorrow?” Shiro whispers as they reach the bottom of the stairwell. Keith’s eyes widen a fraction and he looks away, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. Despite their conversation, it seems that Keith is still apprehensive about being around him where other people can see them. Shiro is a second away from telling him not to worry about it if he doesn’t want to when Keith suddenly nods, and he looks back at him with a small smile.

 

“Sounds good. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.”

 

They wait for the next patrol to pass before sneaking back through the door and heading off in the directions of their respective rooms. When Shiro slips into bed fifteen minutes later, the sense of peace that he has felt for the past few hours carries him swiftly into a deep, contented sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Work title is from 'Where You Are' by The Score. One of the Sheith-iest possible songs.
> 
> Comments/feedback are greatly appreciated ❤


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